Vessels
by blinkingbrave
Summary: Pulled aboard the ship Ylisse, a girl finds herself an amnesiac in a world of naval religious battle. Given the name Robin, she is granted little more than a robe and a warning before being thrust in a society where being a woman at sea comes with a deadly dose of superstition. Update: Robin awakes on the Ylisse to Chrom and his men. She quickly finds herself battling for her life.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem: Awakening, the characters in it, or the cover picture. Nintendo owns alllll of those. I'm not making any money here either. Disclaimer holds throughout.**

**So this story is in a similar format to my other in that I like to put little excerpts for the next chapter on my profile. Forces me to have a plan. You're tooootally encouraged to check it out.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

She was coughing, sputtering, face-down emptying half her lungs onto the sopping wooden floor. A warm weight stroked her head. "Shh, my child, be still," it said.

"Swallowed half the sea by the look of it. Must have been made to walk by another ship." It was a man's deep baritone, accompanied by the vibration of boots on wood. The world was focusing now, into planks and rocking, into a woman's robed lap. As she propped herself on one elbow, the hand against her head forced her back down.

"If it walked the plank on another ship, we would have seen that ship sailing away, or the child would already be dead. This is some strange sorcery or sea demon. Be best to toss it back." A… boat. She was on a boat, and that sliver of deep, shifting blue, that was the ocean. The grey haze fog? Clouds?

"Naga preaches kindness to all living things," a woman's voice replied, nearest to her, the robed lap. She could feel her legs now, cold and wet, tangled in some warmth. Trying to rise again, she felt the robed woman's hand and the warmth, a rough blanket slip off her shoulders. The robed woman pulled the blanket back up.

"It stirs, captain. Toss it over now, or it curses us all," the deepest of the three voices, the one that called her demon, said. Another hand, rougher and larger, wrapped around her elbow. The robed woman clutched her shoulder and the blanket a little tighter.

"Kindness, Frederick. Would you deny the teachings of—"

"Enough." It was the middle voice, the one Frederick called captain. The larger—Frederick's—hand released her. "Libra, assist this… passenger. I trust in your priestly arts to determine whether our new companion is indeed of Grima's fell blood."

"Of course, captain," Libra said, as Frederick, she supposed, grumbled away. Bundled in the blanket, she caught a glimpse of the ship, a blur of solid brown and ocean, and a flash of contemplative face, with hair as blue as the deep sea, before Libra whirled her away. In Libra's arms, she peeked over her shoulder to watch the receding face. The captain—for he was the only of the conversing three who remained—nodded at her.

"Chrom?" It was a whisper, but Libra jerked at it.

* * *

Libra carried her down some stairs to the dark underbelly of the ship. The swinging lamps shed dim light on the hallway, but it was enough for Libra to find a middle door, tucking her head close as she maneuvered around some fellow sailors. Nudging the door open, the woman deposited her on a hammock and shut the door behind them. "Who are you?" Libra asked. Her voice held a strange accent, hers, Chrom's, and Frederick's.

She sat up in the hammock. The room was mostly little furniture and netting, ornate staves wrapped with care against one wall. The ship rocked, and she laid—tumbled, really—back against the hammock's itchy fabric. She frowned at the hammock above her, opened her mouth, and closed it again. She didn't know. "I could ask you the same question."

"Libra. Priest of Naga. More importantly, I'm the one who determines your fate. Now, your name?" As Libra towered over her, she wobbled to a seated position on the hammock. In the lamp light, the woman's gentle features looked fierce and the blonde hair, longer than her own, dirty. The blonde placed her hands on her hips, priest's robes hanging loose on her frame.

"I…" She wrinkled her eyebrows together. She stretched out her arms, covered in unfamiliar, beige fabric, nearly translucent with sea water. She scowled at her gloved fingers. "I'm not sure," she said. She frowned and shook her head, pale wet bob sticking to her cheeks. Was it always that short, she wondered. The priest reached over and ran her hands over her scalp. Bending over, Libra twisted her chin, forcing her to meet the blonde's eyes.

"You don't appear to have a concussion, and you don't appear to be lying," Libra said. The priest kept her chin fixed in her fingers. "But I need something to call you. Robin?"

"Robin." She rolled it on her tongue and let it mull there.

"Name of a songbird. Coincidentally, the name of a Venerated Hero in the Faith of Naga. Very popular," Libra said. Robin nodded. Perhaps those terms would make sense later. "Now, how do you know Chrom?"

"I… it just came to me," Robin said. It was something natural, like how she knew the sky was the sky and the sea the sea. "Where am I?"

"So, I am to believe you could remember Chrom's name but not your own?" Libra grunted. "You are on the grand Ylisse, Naga's arm in the ocean, scourge of Grima and his followers. Chrom is our captain. We are about two days voyage from Port Ferox. If you have bathed in Grima's blood, it would be best to reveal this now. As a female, your weak will leaves you particularly prone to possession. We would not blame you."

"The only thing I bathed in was the ocean. And you're female, too, going on about our weak wills," Robin said.

"I'm a man." Robin looked him up and down. Anything could be hiding under those robes. "And—"

Robin tumbled from the hammock and her shoulder met the ground with a crunch as the ship lurched forward. Libra lay against the door, propping himself against the frame. With a groan, the ship recoiled, and Robin slid into the ship's side, Libra's unsteady foot stumbling a breadth from her hand. The room's little table and chair skittered across the floor. "Hells," the man hissed. Pulling himself to the door with hammocks and netting, Libra tossed a glance at Robin. "Take this," he said. Tugging his robe over his head, the man threw it to her. "Let no one find you are a girl. Stay where you are." On shaky footing, Libra teetered out the door, leaving it cracked behind him. Robin pulled Libra's robe over her clothes and stumbled after him.

As Robin crashed into the hallway, Libra was gone, enveloped in the herd of sailors. Leaning against the wood, Robin pressed herself against the wall. The hall was designed for one or two men side-by-side, not ten or twenty moving to the same stairwell. "C'mon, kid." A friendly man smiled down on her, olive hair drifting into his eyes. "Just stick with me, and I'll get you through this. First time is the roughest." The man wrapped an arm around Robin's shoulder and forced their way through the herd.

* * *

Blinking the sudden sunlight from her eyes, Robin felt the man pull her from below deck in some direction. As her eyes adjusted, Robin found Libra near the center of the deck, at the side of Chrom and a young boy. "Must have been hiding in the fog," the man said, waving to another ship in the haze. Robin could see just see it, illuminated by a fiery beacon. "Urgh. Fire tomes. Last fire fight blasted a hole in the ship straight through the food supplies." He nudged Robin's shoulder, pointing to the center of the ship. "Ever seen magic before?" he asked.

"I..." Robin shook her head. Her voice was feminine, enough that it could be taken for a young boy's or a girl's. Instead she followed the man's arm. Libra had his hand on a boy's shoulder. Small, brunette, almost girlish in his delicate features, the boy held a book out in one hand. As he chanted, the book began to levitate, the wind began to rise. "What?" she whispered, but her words were whipped away in the building gale.

"Get ready to board," the man shouted. The gust roared around them, but before it could buffet their own ship, it howled away. "Name's Stahl," he added. "Yell if we get separated. And don't worry, everyone vomits the first time." The opposing ship was drifting closer, and Chrom's did not appear to be moving. Magic. Wind magic. The enemy ship's flame was snuffed out, and with creaking, sidesplitting groans, the ship drifted to a stop, close enough that Robin could see the horrified faces of its sailors.

"Now," Chrom roared.

The sailors closest jumped, leaping from his ship to the other like fish hopping out to peek at the sky. Robin could feel Stahl pulling her forward, and Libra, herding the magician below deck, was too far away to scream for. "Wait, wait, wait," Robin cried, praying Stahl would take her for a boy. Whether Stahl could hear her over the clash of steel and grunts of pain or not, he dragged her to the railing.

Crushed between Stahl and the wooden frame, Robin looked to the turmoil on the other ship. Somehow the thin strip of water separating the two boats was more terrifying than the swords and screams on the other ship. At her side, Chrom jumped the gap easily.

With a fluid motion, Stahl leapt up to balance on the ship's railing. He stood there, booted toes just peeking over the water, arms outstretched. "C'mon. Up," Stahl said. Robin shook her head, short bob whisking around her chin. "It's easy. Just hop on the railing." Robin grunted as Stahl pulled her into the wood, knocking her ribcage. The man's grasp was tight on her wrist, and with no choice, Robin wobbled onto the railing with him.

Robin turned to glare at Stahl, clearly insane, at her side and nearly tilted over the edge. With a gasp and the man's firm hand, Robin righted herself. The choppy water was yards away. Little patches of crimson and floundering sailors peppered the sea like meat in a stew. "You cannot make me jump this," she said, roughening the girlish edge in her voice.

Stahl chuckled. "I'd be a little more concerned about the other side." He released her hand, but before Robin could escape, the man wrapped an arm around her waist, hoisting her into the air as if she were some misshapen barrel. In an easy toss, Robin was flying. The sea was a blur, air choked in her throat. Her stomach met the other railing. Coughing, Robin tilted herself onto the deck, tumbling over on her shoulder. She had done this before, but the details were hazy.

A corpse, gurgling blood, fell at her feet with a wooden thunk. Scrambling up, Robin watched his blood seep into her soggy boots. As the dead man's eyes looked unseeing to the sky, Stahl wrenched his sword—cutlass, some inner voice corrected—from the sailor's ribcage. "You—You—His blood is in my boots," Robin said, hysterical shriek muffled by the battle around her.

Stahl bent down, easing the dead body's blade from his grasp. "Better his blood than yours," he said, tossing the cutlass to Robin. Fumbling with the blade, Robin hissed as she nicked her finger before grasping it in a familiar hold. Stahl smoothly dispatched another sailor as Robin sucked on her injured finger. "With me," he cried, before the roar of the fray enveloped him.

Robin was alone in the swirl of metal and men. Around the ship's deck, sailors leapt like dancers in a fluid, choreographed death waltz. As one, rippling muscles died crimson, crashed through the railing feet away, Robin tightened her grip on the cutlass. Libra was gone. Stahl was gone. She couldn't risk turning her back to these madmen to jump back across. A familiar head of blue, Chrom, ducked into the belly of the ship. After a breath, Robin snuck under an arm after the Ylisse captain.

Squeezing around barrels and sailors, Robin pushed her way through the deck. She edged around prone bodies, the iron stench of blood, the slosh of salt, water, and red, catching a glimpse of elbow before she was gasping on the floor, blinking stars from her eyes. Robin rolled to her back, meeting the triumphant gaze of a sailor poised with a heavy blade. Her own cutlass was feet away. Robin jerked to the side. The man's blade shattered the beam where her stomach had been. "Wait. There's been a mistake," Robin shrieked. She scrambled to avoid the man's sword. The thrust sent splinters, little slivers of stinging pain, shooting into her cheek. "Just stay away," Robin said.

As Robin backed into a body, slick with blood, the man above her chuckled. Robin knew, if nothing else, she was not going to die here. She wrapped her hands around the slippery hilt of a cutlass, once wielded by the corpse at her back. Whipping the blade in front of her chest, Robin crinkled her eyebrows together in concern. "Please. I don't want to hurt you," she said. The man brought down his sword again, and Robin dove towards him. Low to the ground, she kept the blade parallel to her face. The edge of the cutlass buried itself in the cords of the growling sailor's thighs. She wrenched it out, shredding his pants. With a gasp, Robin felt his weight on her shoulder and the vibration of the floorboards as her enemy fell to the ground.

The man's hand pressed down on her shoulder. His face inches from hers smelled like sweat, blood, and salt. "The girl?" he growled. Robin plunged her sword into his side. Whatever the sailor's words, they turned into a bloody, bubbly gurgle. Chest heaving, Robin pushed the corpse off her body. He slumped backwards like a giant ragdoll, still foaming crimson at the mouth. Robin had killed a man, but she didn't feel like vomiting. With one shaky arm, Robin dried his blood off her face.

"Surrender now." Chrom's voice over the pain and haze sounded fuzzy. "I have your captain." The deck was in shambles, wood blasted away, bodies strewn across the floorboards, splintered barrels and scraps of rope and fabric littering the space. Everything was quiet, frozen in anticipation. One sailor, with a careful glance, placed his sword on the ground. The others followed after to the raucous roar of Chrom's crew.

Robin rose to her feet and crumpled back to the ground. With a sharp gasp, she pressed her forehead to the wood. Her leg, she registered with odd detachment and a spinning head, was sticky and cold. Pulling it to her front, Robin heard the ripping of her pants as she freed them from her dead opponent's blade. Her calf was bleeding. It was a long, diagonal slice, deep enough to harm something critical. "Not bad, all things considered." Stahl wiped his blade on a dead man's jacket. "Guess I'm going to have to toss you back across, kid," Stahl said and scooped her up in his arms once more.

* * *

Libra awaited them on deck, a delicate staff with an ornate headpiece in one hand. It was one from his room, Robin registered. With a few singed floorboards and shattered railings, Chrom's ship was relatively unharmed. His men lined up along one side, captives roped together on the other. Chrom stood between the two alongside Frederick, both unharmed, and gazed over the captives. As Libra touched the staff to each man, the bauble on top glowed. More magic, Robin decided. She leant heavily on Stahl's shoulder and looked to Libra making his way towards them. "It's the blessing of Naga," Stahl said. "The staff, only a priest trained in the ways of the Goddess of Wind and Life has the ability to harness its powers. To the rest of us, it's a stick, but in Libra's hands, it's an instrument of healing. Don't worry. It feels like a warm tingling."

As Libra stepped in front of Robin and Stahl, he narrowed his eyes. "I see you contributed to the battle, Robin," he said, eyes lingering on her injured leg. "And you got blood on my robes." The blonde thrust out his staff and let the ornamental top rest on her head. Libra closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. Little dots of warmth sparkled down Robin's back like feather-light pin pricks, and warmth radiated out from her stomach to her extremities. With fair skin and long lashes, Libra looked like a woman even this close, manliness belied only in the tight clothing that clung to his muscular frame.

Libra lifted his staff, and over his shoulder, Robin could see Frederick pull a sailor from the pile of captives. Leaner than the others, the sailor struggled in Frederick's grasp, long, brunette hair whipping around in his attempts. Frederick dragged the man to Chrom with ease. "Captain, this one is—"

"Sir, please listen to me," the sailor said, and Robin knew the voice was too high to be a panicked man. "My brother. He is too young to provide. Would you rob him of his sister?" Upper arms pinned to her sides, the woman raised a hand, fingers outstretched.

Frederick whipped his hand to her own, twisting it behind her back. There was a crunch, eclipsed by the woman's scream. "An attempted curse, captain," Frederick said. Robin gaped, but, although Stahl on her left and the redhead on her right grimaced, neither objected. Both crews watched Chrom, Frederick, and the woman in the middle. Chrom looked down upon her, eyes too distant to read. "A sea witch, captain, attempting to fool you with the same sweet words she entranced these men with." The woman, hair a curtain over her face, shook her head.

"If you deny it, milady, can anyone support your claim?" Chrom asked. His voice was calm and clear, masking whatever emotion he felt.

"My crew members," the woman said, breathy and laced with pain. "They can vouch for me." Chrom glanced to the men. A few shrunk against the ship's railing. Some shook their heads. "Please." Frederick frowned down at her.

"No one will vouch for her?" Robin whispered to Libra. The blonde was watching Chrom with careful disinterest. At her words, the man glanced to her with widened eyes. "Libra?"

"Right," Libra said, and he moved to block Robin from Chrom with his shoulder. Robin peeked over it to watch the captain, but Libra's words were hidden from the man. "If she is found guilty—"

"Which she will be," said the redheaded boy at her side. There was a hint of bitterness in his voice, his hands white fists.

"If, Sully," Libra said, drawing out the 'if', "If she is found guilty, her allies will bear her punishment. Any who side with her may well be under her spell, and we cannot afford to take risks. We are days away from the Isles. If Grima were to turn the seas against us, we would all drown. It is the welfare of the many over the few. The captain is in a… difficult position." Robin looked to Libra. The man was frowning at her feet. "The crew wishes her overboard, and Chrom's position is an elected one. He displeases the crew, someone more suited to their desires takes charge."

Chrom crossed his arms, muscles rippling under a familiar tattoo. "Can you prove to me you are not a Handmaiden of Grima?" he asked.

The woman jerked forward against Frederick's grip. "You ask me to prove the sky is blue," she cried. Tears trickling down her face, the woman fell limp. "Please. Captain, my brother, he is but ten. Without the money I send him, he will starve on the streets."

"Tell me about him," Chrom said.

"Name's Willis. Lives in a nook in the Drunken Pegasus in Port Ferox. Just ask the mistress," the woman said between sobs.

Chrom watched the woman's shaking shoulders. Frederick cleared his throat. "Captain," Frederick said. "It is a pretty story, perhaps a true one, but the safety of the crew—your safety—is at risk, and I promised your sister that she would lose only one sibling to Grima's watery clutches."

Chrom nodded and turned his back on the woman. "Frederick, do as you must. A few men lend him a hand. The rest to your posts." The woman wailed an eerie, high-pitched keen, as Frederick and a few others dragged the kicking woman to the side of the boat. The rest of the crew scattered across the ship, faces stretched far between relief and sorrow. Stahl and Sully turned to their posts, expressions unreadable.

"By the gods," Robin said. "They can't do that. Libra, they can't. To toss her over the ship when her only crime is being a woman? I won't-"

"You don't have a choice," he murmured. Libra laid a hand on her shoulder, pulling Robin close. "If you are discovered, it is you they toss next. Be wary. And know my eye is on you. I am your examiner not your ally." Libra released her, whirling off below deck. The woman gagged, the sailors threw her over the boat with a sickening splash.

* * *

**Soooo, whaddya think? I love advice, character calls, plot tips, pairing suggestions, anything at all really. Feel free to review or PM.**


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